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America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

nytimes.com

171–180 of 194 posts

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#171
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical care and not being harassed/shot are also important, and the Democratic party doesn't seem particularly enthusiastic about those things either.

Those two items do take a prominent place in the dem platform [0] Several large-ish departments [1] have been persuaded to make budgetary changes in regards to the lite version of defund the police, i.e. transfer certain operations to medical specialists such as mental illness, etc. don't have time to dig as deep into dem support of taxpayer-funded healthcare, but here is one group to pay attention to because they se…

I think he means the thousands (and rising) of people shot by criminals every year, not the few dozen shot by police.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#172
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple: Made by Foxconn, not in the US. nVidia: Made by TSMC, not in the US. Intel and Tesla are made in the US afaik, but even the hardware startups we do have still tend to manufacture abroad.

Intel is global they have fabs in Israel, Ireland, and China too. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000...

The fab in China is 20 year old tech. Primarily chipsets.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#173
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two items do take a prominent place in the dem platform [0] Several large-ish departments [1] have been persuaded to make budgetary changes in regards to the lite version of defund the police, i.e. transfer certain operations to medical specialists such as mental illness, etc. don't have time to dig as deep into dem support of taxpayer-funded healthcare, but here is one group to pay attention to because they se…

I think he means the thousands (and rising) of people shot by criminals every year, not the few dozen shot by police.

No, I definitely mean the people shot by police. It's not so much the direct deaths that are the problem as the issue of making people unable to rely on the police.

And while criminal shootings are... rising? (for homicides, 2019 was on par with 2006, above 2014, and below 2017), excess police don't stop criminal shootings.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#174

I don't see any talk of removing US dollar as a reserve currency. The only reason China is so export oriented is because they need to earn dollars to buy oil. If they didn't need to buy oil in dollars, they would reorient their factories to sell their manufactured goods domestically, giving everyone a high standard of living. Instead, they are making more and more goods for our fat American consumption just to earn m…

Your post contains many errors. 1) The "Petroyuan"... Should this ever happen, Oil will be priced in Yuan. https://eurasiantimes.com/petro-dollar-vs-petro-yuan-is-chin... 2) this is NOT the reason china exports. They do this as they have a large labour advantage, very lax pollution laws and can make things for far cheaper then others can. You can determne this for yourself once you realize that China doesnt only expo…

I understand everything you said. I meant weaning the US dollar as a reserve currency gradually instead of abruptly. We are already getting some ways there by printing to pay for the massive deficits.

What I meant is that we cannot have our cake and eat it too. If we want to assemble smartphones here, our workers will have to accept the life of those workers. Those workers don't own cars, live in shitty shacks and have no wlb to speak of. But considering that so many people are clamoring for such jobs, maybe that's what we should go for.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#175
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the obsession with manufacturing jobs? Unemployment was still low (at least pre-covid) and total compensation, while not growing as fast as some people would like, is still higher than ever.

Manufacturing requires the ability to marshal human, technological and financial resources at scale. The US policy for the last 50 years has been to invest heavily in the technological and financial capabilities of the equation and outsource the human capability to other countries. COVID-19 has made it apparent that there are significant advantages to having the operational capabilities to organize human resources at…

And we can't vaccinate our population in an efficient manner either.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#176
post #134

Most stories like these completely misunderstand the issues with american manufacturing. It's easy to see lower American manufacturing employment and increasing Chinese manufacturing and conclude that American jobs are simply moving to china, but this narrative doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny. Take for example steel production. American employment in the industry has fallen by 55% since 1989, while chinese producti…

I remember this fortunately got at least a bit of debate time in US primary season. It looks like (as many things) there are multiple causes, and automation is definitely a huge one that can’t be ignored when talking about losing manufacturing jobs.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#177
post #148
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of a story I read about a dictator that took over a country, who while corrupt, actually funneled more money into infrastructure than anyone before him and became very popular with the people. sort of deal with the devil though.

Xi?

I though it was south america, but there's no reason this isn't a repeating pattern over time.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#178
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better than the elitists? They are the elite.

Ha! I was going to edit my post with exactly that, that is correct. 500K/year is probably top 2%?

The elite are not the ones making a tech salary and spending 1/4 of it on their rent. The elite are the few who are writing those tech salary paychecks.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#179
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% of the population is 33 million people. There's a sleight-of-hand going on here where people whine about a tiny number of billionaires and CEOs screwing over the masses and then point to statistics that actual show the average upper middle class household doing very well. I bet a large fraction of the posters on here who complain about being oppressed by economic inequality are themselves part of the top 10% too…

Quit down playing the inequality. Let me make the math easier. Of 10 people, one owns 86% of the stock. The other 9 fight for the other 14%. You are trying to justify that and it’s unfortunate. Also, the few billionaires are still very much a problem. However, the top 10% still displays a large inequality, quite the opposite of “doing very well”. And, I’m glad there are 10%’ers who are pro-equality, they aren’t compl…

More like one owns 86% of the stock, 4.5 own no stock at all, and the remaining 4.5 fight it out.

45% of Americans do not own a shred of stock at all, including indirectly through mutual funds or retirement accounts [1].

1: https://news.gallup.com/poll/266807/percentage-americans-own...

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#180
post #13

"Made in America" is a nice slogan, but "Not Made by an Enemy" would be more apt. Made in an Ally would be fine too (Canada, Mexico, Western Europe...)

> "Not Made by an Enemy" would be more apt

If there is one thing America is good at making, it's enemies.

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